Yes, Boeing is moving 500 of its corporate staff out of state, but the jet maker is NOT moving its existing Washington-based manufacturing operations — or its 80,000 Puget Sound employees — to Texas or anywhere else.

And that fact — that the No. 1 aerospace company in the world will continue to make the 747, 767 and 777 right here in Washington — should put to rest these reflexive assertions that our state’s tax structure is to blame for Boeing moving its corporate headquarters.

“There is an abundance of research suggesting that taxes play a minor role, at best, in business location decisions,” writes David Brunori, contributing editor of the well-respected, non-partisan State Tax Notes Journal. “Boeing’s decision to move its headquarters is not based — at all — on state taxes. Nor is it based on a government that is unfriendly to business. As everyone knows, Boeing had its way in Washington for three-quarters of a century. Boeing will never have a better tax deal (in other states) than it had in Washington.”

And given the robust economic growth our state has experienced in the past 10 years — adding 600,000 new workers in the 1990s — it’s pretty tough to sell the notion that our business climate is hurting economic development.

“However defined,” asserted the Washington Research Council in a study that the nonpartisan think tank issued last year, “Washington has experienced spectacular growth.”

Noting that unemployment in 1999 dropped to a 30 year low, Dennis Fusco, Chief Employment Security Economist, said, “It was the greatest job-generating decade in history.”

In addition, during the last half of the 1990s, average per capita personal income in Washington grew to $30,295 from $23,878, moving our state to 12th highest in the nation from 18th in just five years.

That isn’t to say we can’t do better.
We certainly need a fair tax structure and less burdensome regulation. But cutting taxes on business and getting out of the way is not enough. There are plenty of third world countries with low taxes and little regulation.

What will make Washington better is not winning the race to provide the lowest-tax, least regulated state in the union. Our strategy should be to provide our children with a world-class education, preserve the quality of life that makes the Northwest a magnet, and build an efficient transportation system.

In 1990, when I was executive director of the Bremerton Area Chamber of Commerce, Money magazine named Bremerton the most livable city in America. Our chamber was deluged with correspondence from all across the country. Callers were interested in jobs and the low crime rate. But they were particularly interested in the clean water, the clean air and our great natural resources. We shouldn’t forget how critical a factor our quality of life is to economic growth.

Nor should we shortchange transportation. It is our most pressing challenge this session. The consequence of failing to tackle gridlock will be more serious than merely forcing us to spend more time idling in traffic. It will put a bottleneck in the state’s economy.

If goods and products aren’t getting to market efficiently, and if commuters are stranded on snarled highways, the region’s economy will slow to a crawl.

There are no easy answers to our transportation dilemma. But for the past two years, the Blue Ribbon Commission on Transportation has been examining our options. In its 20-year plan, the commission reports Washington has $200 billion in transportation needs, but only $50 billion in existing revenue sources.

The question now is will the Legislature and the public support new revenue sources to pay for a wide variety of transportation improvements, from mundane maintenance projects to public transit improvements?

That would be a significant investment in both our quality of life and our long-term economic vitality. Are we willing to make it? We are fooling ourselves if we think we can keep and grow the present and future Boeings of our state without stepping up to our current transportation challenge.